Cat Striking Back (19 page)

E
NTERING THE
C
HAPMAN
house, Charlie had gone into the laundry room first to check on the mama cat. Before she'd switched on the light, a low hiss greeted her. She'd paused, then thrown the switch for the single light over the washer.

Mango stood just outside her blanket-lined box, boldly facing Charlie, her tail lashing, her ears flat, shielding her kittens with a growl so businesslike that Charlie hadn't approached her.

“Someone was here,” she said softly. “Someone scared you, Mango.” Nothing but intrusion by a stranger would have frightened Mango so. She peered around Mango to see if the kittens were all right. They seemed to be, two of them nosing at their mother, the other two curled up, yawning.

The laundry window was closed, as it should be. The room was as she had last seen it, nothing seemed different. Mango continued to face her, too upset to settle in again
with her kittens. Leaving her alone to calm down, Charlie moved into the kitchen, her hand concealing her pepper spray.

Nothing seemed disturbed there, the small electrical appliances and the kitchen TV were all in place. But as she'd entered the dining room, she'd stopped cold and backed against the wall, scanning the living room and the hall beyond, then looking around with dismay.

The walls were no longer bright with the jewel-like rows of miniature paintings that she'd so enjoyed. All three walls were bare except for rows of small picture hooks marching across like dark insects poised in some miniscule military maneuver.

Warily she'd moved on through the house knowing she should leave, should go back outside and call the department. Removing her shoes and switching on lights as she entered the silent rooms, she'd slowly scanned each area, walking in the center, away from the cupboards and cabinets that a thief would have examined and where he might have left minute debris from his shoes.

She'd found nothing else disturbed beyond the missing paintings. No closet door had been left open, no drawers with their contents spilling out. The sliding glass door with its pry marks was securely locked; she used a tissue around her fingers to make sure. At last, certain that no one was there, she'd called out to Joe Grey and Dulcie, at first using only, “Kitty, kitty,” in the silly, high voice that she sometimes used to tease Joe, and that he hated. She'd called Joe's name, and Dulcie's, but there was only silence.

What if the cats were hurt, unable to answer her?
Moving carefully from closet to closet, using a tissue to turn the knobs, she searched for them knowing Max would be furious that she'd prowled the house like this, playing cop.

When she was certain the cats weren't there, and having found nothing more out of order besides the missing paintings, she'd hurried on to the Waterman house, stopping to fetch gloves from her Blazer. She was at the Watermans' door when Clyde and Ryan pulled up.

“Chapmans were robbed,” she told them. “Looks like they took only Theresa's paintings, but it makes me worry about the cats. I want to look in the other three houses before we call the department.”

“Not a good idea,” Ryan said. “Call the department now, Charlie.”

Charlie looked at her and knew she was right. She called the dispatcher, then she called Max. The phone went dead while they were talking, but that wasn't unusual in this hilly area. She sat in the car with Ryan and Clyde, and Rock, waiting impatiently and worrying about the cats, worrying that the thief might have hurt them. It was a given that if those cats spotted the burglar, they'd followed him into the houses. Though they were only cats and shouldn't draw his attention, those three had a way of attracting trouble.

When Detective Davis arrived, Charlie gave her the keys to the four houses, and they waited while Davis and four other officers cleared each house. Charlie wanted to go in with Davis, but only when all four houses had been cleared did Juana take her through, so Charlie could tell her what might be missing. Juana had found no sign of a
break-in. When two more units arrived, Juana sent two officers to canvas the neighborhood.

In the Waterman house, Charlie found nothing out of order until, wearing gloves, she retrieved the hidden key for Rita's jewelry cabinet. When Davis opened the carved door, they stared in at empty shelves.

“Rita's beautiful jewelry. Her baroque and Byzantine pieces, the lovely cloisonné.” She turned to look at Juana. “That seventeenth-century faux emerald necklace I so liked.” She stood very still, touching nothing, her anger sharp and hot.

The house wasn't torn apart as if someone had seen Rita wearing such jewelry and was looking for it. This thief knew not only where to look, but must have known the location of the key. Leaving the master bedroom, they went through the rest of the house again but Charlie could find nothing else disturbed, everything seemed to be in place. Certainly the electronic equipment was all there, televisions, the music system, and the computers. As they walked through, Charlie innocently called the cats, saying, “Kitty, kitty,” so they'd know she wasn't alone.

No one mewed, she heard no clawing at a door, no faint cry of a cat in distress. She had a sick feeling that the burglar might have discovered the cats following him as he made his thieving rounds, that maybe Joe had followed too closely on his heels and the burglar had turned on him. Had an edgy thief, finding the big cat stalking him through the dark rooms, been startled into cornering Joe and hurting him? And what about Dulcie and Kit? Had the three cats been together, all three witnesses to the thefts? All three victims?

She watched Juana, wearing cotton gloves, open each closet. They found just the usual household contents, some cupboards cluttered, some neatly arranged. At last they left the Watermans', moving on to the Becker house, where Juana had found much of the furniture missing, indentations on the carpet where little tables had stood, empty picture hooks on the walls, bare places on the hardwood describing the absence of Frances's small imported rugs.

The house was cold, too, from a draft through the open window just beside the front door. “He didn't get in this way,” Juana said. “He may have forced the window and reached through, not knowing it was a double bolt with no key in the lock.”

No,
Charlie thought.
No burglar could have entered. But a cat could.

“You want to record what's missing?” Juana asked. Charlie nodded, Juana produced a small tape recorder, and Charlie followed her through the rooms inventorying as best she could remember every missing rug, carved table, painting, and piece of porcelain. They had circled the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen, had returned to the front hall and were headed for the main-level bedrooms when a yowl brought them up short. Charlie spun around. Davis reached to open the closet door, which shook with thuds. Joe yowled again, louder, and Dulcie and Kit mewled frantically.

Juana pulled the door open and the cats were all over Charlie. Joe Grey hit her shoulder, clinging with demanding claws. Dulcie and Kit climbed up her jacket, mewling and lashing their tails with indignation that they'd been
locked in. But even as Charlie hugged and cuddled them, Kit leaped free again, streaked out through the open window and the wrought-iron grille and disappeared into the night. Dulcie tensed to race after her, but Joe laid his ears back. His look said,
Let her go.

Dulcie scowled at him as if thinking Kit could use some help, and before he could stop her she, too, was gone. Joe and Charlie stared at each other, the tomcat's yellow eyes burning with annoyance. Davis looked on in silence. Neither Charlie nor Joe dared wonder what she was thinking. After a moment, she said, “What about the closet?” The shelves were nearly bare.

“It was full,” Charlie said. “He cleaned it out. Everything was wrapped, I can't itemize those pieces. I think they'd be similar to what we listed.”

Carrying Joe, Charlie returned to her Blazer. Ryan and Clyde were parked behind it, Rock asleep in the backseat. As Charlie approached the convertible, Rock woke and lunged up to nose with delight at the tomcat, slobbering in his face, making Joe grimace.

One squad car had left, and Davis was still in the Becker house. Watching carefully to make sure they were alone, they sat in the roadster listening to Joe's whispered and condensed version of the night's adventure.

“He could have killed you,” Clyde said. “Could have killed all three of you.”

“Four,” Joe said, reminding them of Tansy's part in the action.

“And the burglar?” Charlie asked. “Did you get a better look at him?”

“Not a good look,” Joe said. “But I'd know that smell,
the same as around the swimming pool.” He tried to describe the scent, which seemed to him a cross between catmint and maybe mouthwash. “How did he get openers to all four garages and the door keys? And what made you come looking in the middle of the night?”

“So strange,” Ryan said. “All at once we got worried about you three. Rock was pacing and fussing, and then Wilma called. We all felt that something was amiss.” She frowned, her green eyes puzzled.

Joe Grey shrugged. He didn't think it strange that a few perceptive humans could sense when their friends were in danger, he was surprised it didn't happen more often. He was about to express his opinion when, seeing two officers approaching, he curled up in Ryan's lap and closed his eyes.

K
IT RAN UP
through the hills shying at every sound, dodging every changing shadow as the moon came and went, the land pale one moment and inky the next—and empty. Nothing moved. She could see nothing crouched, waiting. Where
was
Tansy? Had she headed home by herself, so small and alone? She could almost hear the smaller cat crying out to her. She didn't understand their strange connection, she only knew it was like the bond between sisters.

She couldn't remember her own sisters, she didn't know if she'd ever
had
sisters or brothers. What would that be like, to grow up in a real family, with siblings to play with and squabble with, all of them connected by a bond that was like no other?

Racing through a black valley, her heart pounding, she bolted up the side of a hill as the moon showed itself. She could hear the coyotes, off to the south near the Harper ranch. When she reached the crest, almost winded, there
was Tansy high above her, poised atop the next hill, the pale little cat rearing up to look. Another cat lay beside her, just as pale, but very still.

Sage. It was Sage. He didn't rise or move. Flying up the hill to them, Kit was cold with fear. Oh, what was wrong? Sage was like her own brother. Once, she'd thought he would be more than a friend, that he would be her mate. Now he lay unmoving, his head resting against Tansy's paws.

She slowed and padded silently up to them; she couldn't stop shivering. Sage moved a little, then, and opened his eyes to look up at her.

Tansy mewed, “That man…He threw a hammer at Sage, he hurt him bad.”

Kit crouched next to Tansy, her nose to Sage's nose, feeling his quick, shallow breathing.

“I found him just above that house where they're digging, I wanted to go for help but he's so…He insisted on going home but then he hurt more and was weaker, and I don't know what to do.”

Kit touched Sage's shoulder gently with a careful paw. When she stroked his side he jerked away, catching his breath. She didn't touch him again. She thought of Dr. Firetti and the animal hospital but Sage hated that place, even though John Firetti had saved his life. And the hospital stood so far across the hills, clear at the other side of the village, too far for Sage ever to walk there. How could this have happened, after all the pain he'd already suffered, the broken and crushed bones, his long recovery in a cast, his long time among humans as he tried not to fear the human world? How could this be fair?

But life wasn't fair, and that made her all the more angry. “I'm going for help. The road is just down there, Lucinda and Pedric can drive that far, and we—”

“No,” Sage said. “I don't want humans, I don't want a doctor, I don't want to be inside a building.” He tried to scramble up, then lay back. “I can walk, I just need to rest awhile.”

Kit imagined broken ribs, bones puncturing vital organs if he moved, internal bleeding, all the terrifying things she had learned about in the human world and wished she hadn't. She was reaching to touch his back leg, to see if the old, healed injury had been damaged, when a rustle in the grass made her spin around.

Dulcie stood there. She looked at Tansy, looked at Sage's still form, and then crouched over Sage as Kit had done. When she felt him as Kit had, he flattened his ears and gritted his teeth but didn't flinch. “Can you get up?” she asked softly.

“In a little while.” He lay quietly looking at them as Tansy snuggled beside him, her face next to his, shivering against his stillness. Around them the hills were silent, even the yipping of the coyotes had ceased. Above them the moon went in and out of the clouds, throwing running shadows across the frightened cats, and Kit licked tears from her nose.

But at last Sage stirred, and rose, leaning against Tansy. “I want to go home. I want the clowder, I want my own cave.” Limping, he started away up the hills. Slowly the three females walked with him, supporting him as they made their way toward the fallen mansion that was home, his and Tansy's home.

 

O
N THE STREET
of the robberies, lights burned in all four houses and in the neighbors' houses, where people stood in their yards in little knots asking questions of one another and watching as officers secured the four yards with crime tape. Police cars crowded the street, their radios cutting through officers' voices. Two detectives and three officers worked the houses, searching, photographing, lifting prints, vacuuming for trace evidence. One burglary might not have commanded this degree of attention. Four, with a possible link to murder, was another matter. The Becker house, where Charlie had released Joe and Dulcie and Kit from the closet, seemed to have fared the worst, stripped of all the smaller furnishings.

Juana had emerged from the Longley house when she took a call from the dispatcher. Glancing up at Charlie, in the roadster, she gave her the thumbs-up then stepped over to the car and punched in a single digit on her cell phone, turning on the speaker.

Max was saying, “I'm on my way, just turned off Ocean.”

“You'll like this,” Juana told him. “Prints from all four burglaries match those from the swimming pool.”

Max chuckled. “Very nice. Charlie's okay?”

“She's right here.” She handed Charlie the phone.

“Fine,” Charlie said. “I'm fine.” Down the block, lights turned onto the street, moving toward them, and in a moment Max's pickup double-parked beside a police unit. As Charlie hurried to the driver's window, and Davis returned to the Longley house to finish lifting prints,
behind Clyde's and Ryan's backs, Joe Grey slipped out of the roadster and through the shadows, and into the house behind Juana.

 

W
HAT HE'D
LIKE
to do was stroll casually up to Davis and say,
I told you so! I told you there was a body at the bottom of the swimming pool! And I had a pretty good idea, all along, that our burglar was the same guy!

But of course Davis
had
listened to him, as the detective always did. She might complain about the anonymity of the phantom snitch, but she paid attention. And now, with the matching prints, with burglary and apparent murder linked together, both detectives would be working different aspects of the case. Following Juana into the master bedroom, he slipped under the dresser to watch her lift prints in the adjoining bath, handling with gloves the cosmetic bottles, the toothpaste tube, though these were items the burglar probably hadn't handled. The bath was done in shades of cream-colored marble; countertop, floor, shower, and the walls were painted a pale cream. Slipping up behind Juana, Joe used his nose to work the scene in his own way, sniffing for the elusive medicinal scent that so resembled catmint. If the smell
was
of a medicine, and if he could find one bathroom among the four houses where it was stronger, that might be the best lead yet. It was the combination of crimes that was the teaser.

Did this guy kill the woman because she knew he was planning the burglaries? Maybe she confronted him and
threatened to call the law? Or had it been an accident, had she found out and confronted him, he'd lost his temper, hit her, and she fell? And then he was too scared to call for help, didn't want to tangle with the cops? Maybe he had a record, maybe he was on parole. So he'd hauled her out of there, hosed down the pool, loaded up the body, and…and what?

Where was the body now? He had to stash it somewhere before he proceeded with his burglaries. Or was the corpse tucked away in his RV all the time, while he loaded the stolen goods in with it?

He watched Juana leave the room, then he trotted into the bathroom to sort more carefully through the scents. If the scent he was looking for was medicine, maybe he should check all the bathrooms. Here he smelled lemon soap, mint toothpaste, spicy shaving lotion—he thought he caught the catmint scent but, mixed with everything else, he couldn't be sure. He checked the other two bathrooms, then headed for the Watermans', intent on covering all the bathrooms in the four houses if he could avoid the two detectives and the officers, who wouldn't take kindly to a tomcat walking through the evidence.

 

I
T WAS AN
hour later when, having accomplished his task but gained nothing, Joe saw Clyde coming up the street, peering among the bushes looking for him. The time was well after midnight, pushing dawn, and Clyde was yawning. Joe, scrambling up a pepper tree, didn't intend to go
home. Vanishing into the roof's shadows, he raced away over the neighbors' roofs toward the hills. Kit's hasty retreat, and then Dulcie taking off so fast, had left him increasingly uneasy as he prowled the four houses. Kit was so charmed by that half-grown kitten—if Kit had gone after her, Dulcie would have followed; and a sharp nervousness filled his belly, a shaky unease that sent him flying toward the dark hills.